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Mariah Maras
Professor Haixia Lan
English 333
Fall 2013
Aristotelian Rhetorical Thought
The Aristotelian techne of rhetorical invention - ethos, pathos, and logos - is a process in which the
rhetor and audience together produce, discover, and fabricate probable knowledge. By viewing techne this way,
the process of Aristotle’s rhetoric is partially like Plato’s and partially like Gorgias’. Aristotle lists three modes
of persuasion in relation to the Greek terms ethos, pathos, and logos. According to ethos or credibility proof of
the rhetor, the rhetor must be a good person of some sort. The audience must in turn come to perceive the rhetor
as a good person in order to believe the rhetor’s credibility as a speaker. “Persuasion is achieved by the
speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible” (1356a4). Aristotle
explains that a rhetor must produce of his own self a good man. Further, since exact validity is not possible,
probable knowledge must be fabricated through the perceived credibility of the rhetor by the audience. Aristotle
explains, “We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the
question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided” (1356a6).
According to pathos or the emotional proof, the rhetor must focus on tending to the audience’s emotions
in order for them to be successfully persuaded. Aristotle writes, “Our judgments when we are pleased and
friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile” (1356a14). In order to appeal to the audience’s
emotions, Aristotle explains that the writer must focus all of their efforts on the language use to stir the emotion
of the audience. Emotional appeal can make an argument of probable knowledge even stronger.
In accordance with logos or logical proof, the rhetor must persuade through use of reason. This includes
the use of both inductive logic, or the example, and deductive logic, or the enthymeme. The enthymeme
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produces probable knowledge. It can take probable knowledge as its premises and in turn produce probable
knowledge, sometimes true and sometimes not. An example, on the other hand, demonstrates a situation in
question that has occurred before and uses it to support a future similar situation likely to occur by inducing the
knowledge from the previous situation and applying it to the current or future situation. Aristotle is okay with
either of these means of logos used to persuade the audience. He states, “Thirdly, persuasion is effected through
the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments
suitable to the case in question” (1356a19). Together the rhetor and audience, using the three modes of
persuasion provided by Aristotle’s form of techne of rhetorical invention, are able to produce, discover, and
fabricate probable knowledge.
An example of a Rhetoric and Composition scholar who explored the Sophistical side of Aristotle’s
rhetoric is James E. Porter. In his essay, “Intertexuality and the Discourse Community” Porter discusses the use
of intertextuality to fabricate something new. In other words, a person borrows knowledge from one source and
combines it with another source, or many other sources, to fabricate new probable knowledge. He describes
new probable knowledge as new discourse in this case. In referring to the way that the rhetor and the audience
together produce, discover, and fabricate probable knowledge Porter states, “We might then say that the
audience of each of these texts is as responsible for its production as the writer. That, in essence, readers, not
writers, create discourse” (Porter 228). The way that this relates to the Sophistical side of Aristotle’s rhetoric is
that the audience, in this case the example from Porter of when reading John Kifner’s article in the New York
Times about the Kent State shooting, is able to recognize an array of signs (Sophistical term borrowed from
Jacques Derrida) relating to relevant material from the writing to their culture, time period, and location. I
would say that an understanding is created by the audience from the text in being able to relate words and
phrases that Kifner uses to other parts of their American way of life. In this sense, knowledge is created about
not only the event that happened, the Kent State shooting, but knowledge about what kind of effect it has and
will create across the nation. From this effect derives a probable knowledge about American culture in the
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sixties and seventies. The probable knowledge then relates to the true by affirming parts of American culture
and the time period that were relative to the everyday lives of Americans, enabling the audience to understand
and relate the words and phrases of the text to the truths of their American life.
Aristotle confers this Sophistical idea of fabrication when describing rhetoric. He first states that rhetoric
is useful. He then states, “It is clear, further, that its function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather
to discover the means of coming as near such success of the circumstances of each particular case allow”
(1355b9). By describing rhetoric’s function as a way to “discover the means” of successful probable
knowledge, Aristotle falls in line with the Sophistical side of reasoning. This is exemplified again, through
Porter’s essay discussing the way that intertextuality helps the writer to discover the means of new discourse or
new probable knowledge.
Two examples of Rhetoric and Composition scholars who seem to explore only the Platonic side of
Aristotle, leaving the other side unexplained, are James L. Kinneavy and Richard E. Young. In his essay
“Kairos in Classical and Modern Rhetorical Theory,” Kinneavy explains the Platonic side and the Sophistical
side of Aristotle’s rhetoric through his discussion of what kairos is, though he seems to kind of lose focus on the
Sophistical side and instead focuses on the Platonic side more in depth. Throughout his essay, Kinneavy
discusses how Aristotle looks at the way kairos does, in fact, impose the value on ideas and force humans to
make free decisions about these ideas using various methods such as those of the Platonic method. The Platonic
side of the kairic nature of Aristotelian rhetorical invention establishes general rules for a situational
application; it is in a way, universal and can also apply to the future. Kinneavy discusses how Plato and
Aristotle relate on this level and sums this idea up by saying, “And both distinguish the general rules of the art
of rhetoric from their situational application” (Kinneavy 67). Plato believed that general rules and ideas about
things were universal so, looking at kairos from a Platonic side, its nature can be universally applied to
particular situations.
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Young discusses the use of heuristics in teaching writing in his essay “Concepts of Art and the Teaching
of Writing.” He acknowledges the Sophistical side of teaching writing by listing Sophistical people such as
Gorgias, but he explains the teaching of writing more in depth in a Platonic way. He quotes others who discuss,
with Platonic expression, earlier rhetorical elements, “though very real and valuable, are not practical because
the ability to employ them cannot be imparted by teaching. They have to exist in the writer himself, in the
peculiar bent of his nature. (Practical Elements, pg. xi)” (qtd. in Young 176). This quote explains the way that
probable knowledge is discovered from being familiar to a person, as if it has happened before; again, it has
been proven to be universally applied to a particular situation as Plato believes. Further, Young explains
through a quote by another scholar, Gordon Rohman, that the process of thinking when writing brings forth
probable knowledge about something. It is not the other way around as the Sophistics explain where new
probable knowledge can be fabricated through intertextualization. Instead, Rohman explains that thinking
actively brings about probable knowledge. He states, “By “thinking,” we refer to that activity of mind which
brings forth and develops ideas, plans, designs, not merely the entrance of an idea into one’s mind; an active,
not a passive enlistment in the “cause” of an idea; conceiving, which includes consecutive logical thinking but
much more besides; essentially the imposition of pattern upon experience” (qtd. in Young 177). Through this
quote that Young provides, the elements of a kind of Platonic heuristic are also explained. The elements involve
intuition and relevant knowledge in order to follow through with the heuristic procedure. Elements of
Aristotle’s rhetoric that are Platonic.
An example of a Rhetoric and Composition scholar who argues that Aristotle’s rhetoric is Platonic is
Barbara Warnick. In her essay “Judgment, Probability, and Aristotle’s Rhetoric,” Warnick discusses the five
modes of thought or, what she explains that Aristotle expresses, the “five faculties by which the soul expresses
truth by way of affirmation and denial” (Warnick 229). Warnick points out throughout her essay the various
parts of Aristotle’s writings that are Platonic. One part in particular is 1402b9 in his Rhetoric when Aristotle
discusses using probable knowledge in rhetoric when judging the accused and their opponents. Warnick
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provides information regarding the topic and concludes, “Therefore, the conclusion must be shown to apply in
the majority of cases” (Warnick 307). Again, the Platonic nature of her conclusion is shown through the
argument made that the probable knowledge in rhetoric, leading to a conclusion, must be shown to apply in
many cases. This argument relates to the Platonic side that probable knowledge about something can be
universally applied to a particular situation.
The second and third uses of probable knowledge in rhetoric argued for by Warnick are Platonic as well.
They are “a premise formed from a generally accepted proposition” and they are inferences or “connections we
make between facts and conclusions in everyday reasoning” (Warnick 308). They are more closely related to
Platonic thinking in that they involve a kind of intuition in order to come to a conclusion. The propositions are
discovered and applied rather than fabricated and manipulated. There are connections between meanings, or
facts, and what they represent, the conclusion, rather than being unrelated as the Sophistical side states.
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Works Cited
Aristotle. Rhetoric. Trans. W. Rhys Roberts. Introduction to Aristotle. Ed. Richard McKeon. 2nd ed. Chicago:
The U of Chicago P, 1973. 726-59. Print.
Kinneavy, James L. “Kairos in Classical and Modern Rhetorical Theory.” Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in
History, Theory, and Praxis. Eds. Phillip Sipiora and James S. Baumlin. New York: State University of
New York Press, 2002. 58-78. Print.
Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Wiley, Gleason, and Phelps 225-33. Print.
Warnick, Barbara. Judgment, Probability, and Aristotle’s Rhetoric.” Quarterly Journal of Speech. 9 (1989):
299-311. Print.
Wiley, Mark, Barbara Gleason, and Louise Wetherbee Phelps, eds. Composition in Four Keys: Inquiring into
the Field. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1996. Print.
Young, Richard E. “Concepts of Art and the Teaching of Writing.” Wiley, Gleason, and Phelps 176-83. Print.